Van Morrison

Van Morrison (born 1945 in Belfast) is one of the major voices of popular music, father of a “Celtic soul” blending R&B, jazz, blues and Irish lyricism. Twenty-one times at Montreux since 1974, he is among the festival’s legends.

Van Morrison in Montreux

1974 and 1980: two concerts, one DVD

Van Morrison discovered Montreux very early: his first concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival took place on 30 June 1974, for the 8th edition. He was not yet thirty and had already written “Astral Weeks” and “Moondance”. Six years later, in 1980, he returned backed by a large band for a concert that stayed in memory: “Wavelength”, “Moondance”, “Tupelo Honey” and a few other classics.

In 2006, the festival gathered those two evenings on “Live at Montreux 1980/1974”, Van Morrison’s very first official DVD, released by Montreux Sounds, Claude Nobs’s archive house. Two eras of one voice, captured on the shores of Lake Geneva.

A regular, decade after decade

After 1974 and 1980, Van Morrison came back almost decade after decade: in 1984, several times in the 1990s, then in 2003, 2004 and 2007, and again in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022, up to his concert in July 2026. The page the festival devotes to him counts twenty-one appearances since 1974, a record among its regulars.

From one edition to the next, the voice matured without losing any of its quest: Van Morrison still sings as if searching, at the end of each line, for a state of grace.